Opening doors, Slamming gates
by XxSashaxX
Summary: An overlooked decoder has many insecurities and hidden secrets. After being unnoticed in her job for nearly 4 years she suddenly is of great use and interest, but can anyone help her before she does something she'll regret? Will the profilers even notice?
1. A Different Day

**_Opening doors, Slamming gates_**

**_XxSashaxX_**

_New story, new ideas, new life. _

_I hope you'll bare with me, the prologue and first chapter will be around 900 words so relatively short just so i can ease myself and you into the plot line. I hope you enjoy it and intend to review, thank you in advance XxxX_

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PROLOGUE

She walked into the BAU office clenching the strap of her bag tightly. The heavy wooden doors slammed behind her, though they made little noise compared to the rustle and bustle of the office. The darkly furnished interior did nothing to lighten her mood but the smell of coffee and hot chocolate did and offered warmth and comfort.

As she walked over to her desk she smiled, as she always did when she found it in exactly the same way she left it. Being in a building full of profilers puts you on edge, especially if you aren't one too keen to be profiled.

She had moved the desk a few inches back years ago, nearly 4 years roughly. It was only a few weeks into being moved to Quantico and she couldn't deal with being so close to people, so she shuffled her desk back and never felt as relieved since. Those few extra inches really relaxed a girls mind.

She walked over to her desk and kept up her confident 'I don't take no shit' attitude until she got to her chair. She took everything out of her bag she needed and kept it in one arm as she propped her bag up against the filing cabinet behind her desk. She proceeded to take out a thin metal box out from under a crimson ring binder and laying it carefully on the table ensuring it was in line with everything else she laid down from her bag.

She felt herself released a breath she knew she had been holding as everything was in its place. The disorganization in the office did not bother her just so long as her desk was tidy, neat, and just as it should be; how she left it.

The pile of files on her desk suggested she had work to be doing but she couldn't bring herself to do it yet. Her mind was elsewhere as she tried to grasp back some energy from at least her third sleepless night. However, she knew she had responsibilities and pushed away the thoughts of her loved ones scattered around dead around her as she took the first brown folder of the pile.

She rubbed her eyes as she logged her desktop on and then proceeded to sharpen her pencil and lay it parallel to the folder that had yet to be opened. The smell of coffee and chocolate wafted through again and she decided before she began to work that she should get something to drink that either had sugar of caffeine in it; or possible a mix of both.

Whilst at the BAU she had learnt that to succeed you have to follow your heart, trust your instincts. It was a flawless motto that hadn't led her into any trouble yet. Yet, she still felt on edge, no one knew why she came to the BAU to start with. No one really cared, she was only the decoder, and not many people even knew her _name_. They just shoved paper at her and roughly stated a time they wanted it back by.

She was startled out of her day dream when she heard another persons clinking of a spoon as they stirred sugar into their mug also. She looked up and saw a blond, seemingly tired lady in colourful clothing hunched over her mug bracing herself on the counters. She hadn't even realized she was making her hot chocolate; sleep was needed, evidently.

"Remind me _never_ to fall asleep at 3am on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn again" the lady was obviously talking to herself as she muttered and stirred but she felt compelled to reply,

"Will do" this caused the lady to look up and smile,

"Hey, I don't think I know you, are you new? I'm Penelope Garcia" Penelope offered her hand and she took it firmly, no need to make her think you only just scrambled your way into this position; even if she was one of the best hackers in the world and part of the most successful BAU team in the country.

"Mornin', no, I've been here for nearly four years now, I'm Maria Mendez" Penelope blinked a few times,

"I can't believe I didn't dig up some dirt on you, I'm sorry" she laughed lightly and she snapped out of her gobsmacked and guilty expression,

"You wouldn't have liked what you found"

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_Feel free to review_


	2. Two Sarcastic Whiz Kids

**_Opening doors, Slamming gates_**

**_XxSashaxX_**

__New story, new ideas, new life.__

_Thank you to those that have stuck with me and I hope you enjoy this chapter enough to get to the end. If you have any suggestions feel free to PM me or leave it in a review. Again, i hope you wish to review, thanks in advance, XxxX_

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CHAPTER 1

She walked away, leaving a puzzled Penelope Garcia behind. Plopping herself down in her chair Maria managed to get through all of the files quickly and efficiently. She hadn't seen Gideon today; he was the only one in this whole office to pay her any attention, he'd come and collect the de-coded codes from her and hand them out to the necessary people.

The codes themselves were human intended; no computer could figure them out. So naturally, in this technology revolved world, the BAU went to the next best thing. A human computer.

Maria straightened the file of finished Mandela folders and tweaked her desk equipment. She sighed,

"I should stop doing this" _but you can't_. "Shut it"

Her accent was peculiar, somewhere between Spanish and English. She only moved to the US to study and never planned on staying, but that all changed; along with the rest of her life.

The doors then swung open, the familiar stormy face of Aaron Hotchner marched forcefully in. I suppose I would be that gloomy if I had to keep in check several other highly opinionated, armed special agents.

Not shortly after him Derek Morgan follows in, studying a piece of yellowing paper perplexed and with a furrowed brow.

"Hotch, this is impossible" Aaron whips round and snatches the paper from Derek.

"Of course it is! It's what he does, and why he does it! Garcia!" Penelope zips in, sneaking a wink at Morgan before answering Hotch.

"Yes, Sir?" she looked a little pissed but I didn't pass father thought.

"Put this through you database" she looked at it fleetingly before replying,

"It won't come up with anything" she continued to study it, and added,

"Maybe you should wait for Reid?"

"NO! you haven't even tried! And Reid isn't in today, Gideon asked him to come along with him for a talk" Hotch look stressed and irritated two things that were _not_ good to see on the unit chief's face.

I could hear their whole conversation only because they were mere meters away from my desk, I only realized my nervous state when I felt my finger joints hurt from all the clenching and un-clenching they had been doing.

At that moment Hotch looked over at me,

"You" _oh god, please, do not direct your anger at an innocent civilian...at least not when they have no weapon of defense other than a sharpened pencil and rubber rabbit toy,_

"Yes sir?"she repeated Penelope's words, seeing as she didn't get shouted at for saying them. Morgan was about to make a sarcastic comment at my reply before Penelope hit him on the shoulder and gave the thumbs up to me with a smile as she raised her thumbs to her cheeks.

"You can decode this?" he slapped the sheet down on my desk, disorganising it all. I began to straighten and replace and I replied,

"Give me an hour"

"Only an hour?"

"That's what I said, did I not?" Maria didn't mean for it to come out so rude, but it had and she wasn't about to take it back; the look of sudden realisation hit Hotch as she continued to straighten and neaten her desk.

"I'm sorry for being so forthcoming" and he walked off, _well hello respect where have you been all my life? ...Under the covers hiding dear._

Morgan leant in close to Maria and checked in the direction Hotch had walked off,

"You sure you can get this done in an hour? Hotch hate's breaking deadlines" Maria rolled her eyes,

"Hanging upside down with my hands locked with Chinese finger traps" Garcia contemplated,

"Mind if I steal that?" Penelope asked popping her head next to Morgan's,

"Nah, after all great minds think alike-"

"-but fools Seldom differ" Penelope and Maria laughed lightly as Morgan rolled his eyes and walked of muttering something like;

"How am I meant to deal with _two_ sarcastic ladies?" Maria wasn't aware she was making friends, but now she was; and it's the happiest she's ever felt, scratch moving the desk back.

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_Feel free to review_


	3. The Two Genius'

_**Opening doors, Slamming gates**_

_**XxSashaxX**_

_New story, new ideas, new life._

_Thank you to all the reviewers so far, they really do make me happy. Especially the fact you want to read more and I hope you continue to review, thank you. _

_Also this chapter is longer so I hope you enjoy it, it's about 2500 words so it's a big escalation from the last two chapters. Hopefully you'll review._

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CHAPTER 2

"BAU team in the conference room!" Hotch called as he circled round the tables and up stairs into the conference room, slamming the door behind him.

Maria tried hard not to start fiddling through nerves but without anyone there to tell her nothing was wrong she resorted to her own ways of calming herself. Checking, re-checking and re-checking the re-check.

_**In the conference room**_

"What have we got Hotch?" Morgan asked, leaning forward on his forearms.

"Morgan, no one else is here…" Morgan, who before was seemingly unaware of the lack of other people in the room, blinked and looked around, attempting to be discrete about it,

"Sorry, I must have-"

"Thrown yourself into the case again?" Hotch finished with a smirk, Morgan rolled his eyes and dismissed himself to go fetch the other agents that must not have heard Hotch holler earlier.

_**Out of the conference room**_

Maria watched as Derek jogged lightly out of the conference room and round the corner. The natural reaction for her was to panic over his rush, but after a little more rational thinking she decided that if he was really in a panicked rush then he wouldn't have taken the lift at the end of the hall, he would have favoured the stairs.

Also, he and Hotch were the only ones to enter the conference room. It was unlikely they would have started the case without the other agents there. In all likelihood it was more likely he was going to find the rest of the team and Hotch was preparing all the information they had on the case.

Maria had finished all her de-coding, as well as the ones on the desk in front of her. She had assumed the agent had called in sick and taken it upon herself to whiz through them.

The disturbance she _should_ have felt reading through all these letters and puzzles still eluded her, not something she was always grateful for; did it not make her a psychopathic and capable of murder as the people writing these? Creating the puzzles? What's worse is that she understands them, can de-code them because she can think like they do. It worries her more than she'd care to admit.

Morgan came back up to the BAU floor with four agents in tow; Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, Jason Gideon and Dr. Spencer Reid.

Maria had only heard good things about Emily, she was forceful yet had a gentleness around her that reminded Maria of a mother. Not _her_ mother, but stereotypically so.

Jennifer Jareau was quick witted, she'd lost count the number of times she'd fought off the paparazzi or the new reporters just to buy more time for the team. Maria had heard she had a little boy, it was nice that she could balance both, something she hadn't seen many people do.

Jason Gideon was the only agent before today that had actually paid any attention to Maria. No, it wasn't exactly conversation but he was pleasant and offered to hand out the folders. She had guessed he saw that she didn't exactly know everyone name, only the team because Hotch was hollering for them half the time when a new case came in.

The last person to come in behind Morgan was Dr. Spencer Reid, he was the youngest Agent there, and as far as she knew, the youngest agent _ever_ to make it here. It had confused Maria at first, why Gideon would always introduce him to new people as _'Dr'_, but she wouldn't put it past him. Reid looked like he was all the past genius' rolled into one. Despite that he always seemed so…shy? She didn't really know, he didn't seem afraid of speaking about his knowledge or offering his opinion but as soon as he couldn't do that he looked awkward around…well, nearly everyone.

Morgan then stopped and looked behind him and sighed,

"Where's Garcia?" he asked, you could see a pang of worry in his eyes but it was hid quickly; but if Maria could see it, its highly likely the professional profilers would. _Well done deary, that's a big step for a nobody,_

"Shut up" Maria hushed under her breath, not wanting anyone to hear her.

"I think she's still in her office" Jennifer offered, Morgan rubbed his hand over his eyes,

"Alright-" he looked around and his eyes landed on me,

"Hey, Maria?" he asked, she nodded and got up to walk over, but not after a final view of her desk to make sure it was all neat,

"What can I do for you?" She asked, nervous around the other agents that looked confused at her being there and Morgan's choice of person in the current situation, Maria shifted closer to Morgan due to the fact she felt more at ease around someone she had spoken to before and seemingly wants to be her friend.

"Can you go get Garcia? She's only downstairs and Hotch will get into a fit if we aren't there, well, now" Maria smiled at being asked to do something _other_ than decode and recode and then decode the recode to a different decode.

"Sure, shall I tell her you'll be in the conference room?" Morgan's brow furrowed,

"How'd you know we'd be there?" he asked, actually seeming puzzled, Maria shrugged,

"I can be observant, and plus, it's the only room big enough to place the three boxes of files I saw Hotch carrying earlier, assuming the case you're being called in for it related to those files; also, those same files are outside the conference room door, I suggest you take them in, as Hotch didn't seem too…_chirpy_ earlier and I wouldn't do anything to stress him out further" Morgan just chuckled and clapped her on the shoulder as Maria rolled her eyes,

"Well aren't you just a genius in disguise? And yes, tell Garcia where we are, thanks" with that he walked off up the few stairs that lead to the raised offices and the conference room. Morgan picked up the boxes of files, kicked one towards Emily and said something to her before looked up and smiling at Maria one more time as she walked towards the stairs.

It had taken a while to find the remote cave that was Garcia's office but eventually Maria found it. Well, not before knocking on some other doors and opening one to find a rather defensive cleaner over a time of baked beans. Seriously, he nearly growled at her.

"Penelope?" Maria questioned as she knocked and peaked round the door,

"How'd ya find me oh great decoder? I'm practically under a rock down here" Maria smiled in greeting as Penelope swivelled round in her chair,

"Well, let's just say that I nearly got my eyes clawed out by baked bean man" Garcia laughed lightly,

"You found Bert then? He's a sweetie really, when you give him a few bars of chocolate and watch him go hyper" Maria smiled, not completely sure if she wanted to see a hyper, freaky Bert, also wondering if he held grudges against people who interrupted his bean eating sessions.

"Morgan wanted me to tell you they're in the conference room and they want you there"

"He's so lazy! Sorry for making you come all the way down here" Garcia looked slightly sheepish,

"It's fine, I needed to stretch my legs anyway…and the rest of the team was making me nervous" Penelope smiled kindly,

"They all great people when they aren't all serious and "_yes he wants to kill her next and rip out their eyes to eat them, so we should go have a look at the remains_" trust me" Maria nodded and then excused herself to run back upstairs in the hopes of not confronting Bert again.

_**In the conference room**_

"So we have a guy in his mid 20's to early 30's that has already killed approximately 7 people because they could figure out his puzzle fast enough?" Prentiss asked, seemingly perplexed by the person they had found.

"Well the 7th victim may live, you never know. We should just stay positive and hope that they can be a witness. Or at least give us _some_ information. Anything would be good right now" JJ said,

"What are we meant to do with these? Reid are you _sure _you couldn't find _anything_?" Hotch asked as he almost pleaded to a very embarrassed looking Reid,

"No, I can't see it, I can see links between the words but nothing that means anything"

"Anything can mean something" Gideon reminded Reid,

"I'm not sure _cat, tap, and mat_ or _fiddle, kindle and shingle_ mean much together, but they aren't a connection on their own" Gideon look the papers and looked at them, offering no other contribute to the conversation.

_**Out of the conference room**_

Maria had finished the decode a while ago, it was creepy, but nothing she hadn't seen before. It wasn't a copycat code though, this person had a unique method. She didn't really know what to do, should she interrupt the conference?

She still had 20 minutes till she was meant to be giving it to Hotch, maybe she could recheck? But no Maria had already some that 3 times and she came to the same result. Letting out an exasperated sigh and gently picked up the sheet of paper and the small square of paper she had worked the code out on and got up. She made sure nothing moved as she manoeuvred out of her desk and then gave it one last check over before walking up to the conference room.

_**In the conference room**_

"Gideon, anything?" Hotch asked, Jason just shook his head.

"This can't be a puzzle" Hotch said,

"If it were Reid would be able to figure it out" Morgan added, Reid seemed to try his hardest not to narrow his eyes at Morgan as he got another point added to his score in their never ending game on _"let's put everything down to Spencer's apparent Genius-ness"_

A light knock at the door interrupted their silence and Hotch got up forcefully,

"You know you aren't meant to-" he began to shout, but then stopped as an angry little Maria fumed at the door,

"You know, _Chief_, if you don't want my help I can always go back and sit bored at my desk. That's the second time you've been like that with me today and I won't deal with that. I understand you're under stress but that is no way to treat me or anyone else offering their help. I will not go from being overlooked for 4 years to being shouted at; I think I'd rather be invisible" the rest of the team were in stunned silence,

"I'm sorry Maria, I didn't mean to come across ungrateful, not in the slightest" Maria nodded,

"It's fine, I suppose I could have waited another 17 minutes" Reid smiled,

"Thank you" Reid added, getting an odd look from JJ, who incidentally was wondering why Spense would talk to a stranger now, when he preferred to not to talk to girls because of the awkwardness that came with it.

"Like I said I'm not reluctant to do the decode, I just don't want to be shouted at for handing it back" Gideon nodded at her, after all he was the one who dealt with all the angry returns of the codes when they don't find what was hoped.

"The person who wrote this has an obsession with spheres and square based pyramids" brows furrowed and questions shot so fast Maria couldn't deal with it, her hands started to shake so she clipped and unclipped her identification tag, _click-click, click-click, click-click_.

"Hey, hey, hey" Gideon said holding his hands up,

"Give her some space, I doubt we'll be able to comprehend what she explains either way. So we'll just have to accept it" Gideon said in a calm, authoritive voice,

"I'd really like to know how you decoded it" Reid said carefully. Slowly Maria stopped clicking, making sure she landed on her ninth round and then nodded.

"Well it's not really a code, like you'd think of it. It's an illusions, where the is a conflict between perception and reality-"

Several confused questions later they all came to the conclusion that the only one mildly understanding what Maria was saying was Reid and at some of the simpler parts Gideon.

"This is what I think should happen, we are needed at two of the sites. We split up and go to those but Reid, you should stay with Garcia and Maria here to decode all these puzzles or illusions in these boxes. We need to find out what he was trying to say from the beginning, that means dealing with all of these and putting them in chronological order" Hotch addressed the whole team plus Maria.

Reid looked like a boy in a candy store as he gathered all the puzzles the unsub had left over the years, even some delivered to police stations, orphanages and nursing homes. He nodded and started talking to Maria in more depth about the way the illusions would work, including the rods and cones and other parts of the eye.

"Do you ever think we're going to hear to end of this?" JJ added, smiling at a happy Reid as she whispered to the others,

"What do you mean?" Morgan asked,

"I mean, he's going to be seeing illusions everywhere, I just hope he doesn't…" JJ trailed off as he looked at how happy he was as he talked to someone who could teach him something new,

"Actually I do hope, he deserves a little happiness for once"

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_Feel free to review_


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